Local Practice And Operation Of The Land Tax Quota In Qing Dynasty

The Qing Dynasty inherited the tax quota institution from Ming Dynasty,with the original amount of the Wanli period as reference.In Shunzhi period,the Complete Books of Taxes and Labor Service were compiled in the nationwide,which means the institution was established as a stereotype.The institution should be observed from a specific area within a long period of time,concerning about how the quota was operated in the grass-roots society and how the tax burden was reflected in the long-term sustainable rural society.The dissertation focuses on the core proposition of the implementation of the land tax quota in states and counties during the Qing Dynasty,exemplified by Huizhou,which was clearly a typical area to understand the implementation process of the land tax quota,and to closely investigate the institution itself as well as the causes and effects of its changes for a long-time throughout the whole Dynasty.The Qing Dynasty implemented the exact measurement of the land.In Huizhou,the correspondence between the real measured amount and the original amount of the Wanli period was the core issue of compilation,thus promoting the changes in the measurement organization and the compilation method,which brought about the status transformation of the Fish-Scale Cadastral Book system and the Tax Book system in the register institution.The Fish-Scale Cadastral Book and the Tax Book were in the same chain,which acted as a complete logical closed loop connected by the property change,personal confession and ownership transferring,to carry out the mutual promotion.Since the Qing Dynasty,there was a quota for the land tax in the Complete Books of Taxes and Labor Service,and the Fish-Scale Cadastral Book was compiled by land and tax discount in accordance with the quota,and the Tax Book was compiled year by year according to the household registration and landed property ownership(except for special circumstances).Then the transfer of ownership was gradually separated from the Fish-Scale Cadastral Book,and was closely connected with the Tax Book.The tax collection was based on the land with the household as the unit,the transfer of ownership was also carried out with the household as the unit,resulting that the Fish-Scale Booklet gradually lost its effect.The Tax Book became the evidence of landed property possession,which was operated by the book owner in the Li Jia household registration institution,as a result of which,the book owners became the main body of power in the rural society.The institutional practice was inseparable from the grass-roots administration,and the changes in the composition of the extra cost and the increase and decrease of the internal amount can be seen in the administrative process.In general,there were three kinds of additional surcharge in the grass-roots tax collection,one of which was to add the surcharge to the quota tax directly,and the second was to add the surcharge in the form of tax collection cost,and the third was the apportionment of the extra administrative funds of states and counties.The extra cost was closely related to the operation of the One Lash Method and the Li Jia institution,and the increase and decrease space in the quota was attributed to the mutual dispensing and maneuver between the institutions,and the linkage effect between institutions would be generated when the adjustment of single institution in localities was practiced.The quota stipulated in the Complete Books of Taxes and Labor Service was not necessarily the amount of the current year,and the actual amount of states and counties would be adjusted by disasters,wars and other conditions alike.Although the quota seems to be rigid,there were also flexible intervals in the local administrative because that the institution was constructed by disaster relief,harvest reporting and the submission institution of expense accounts to the imperial court.After the war of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom,the financial operation of the Qing government was carried out on the axis of raising the rate,and the land tax in Huizhou experienced a change in the policy of charging rate,offset levying and recovery of normal levying.Under the control of Zeng Guofan,the postwar continuation of offset levying during the war period and the establishment of postwar expropriation pricing was in the tax reduction wave in middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.In order to increase the real amount as much as possible and carry out the effective tax collection in the limited areas that had already been restored to production,the additional surcharge of state and county land tax was legalized by Zeng Guofan with the limit of 15 qian after returning the Meltage fees to the public.And the application of three currencies including Yinyuan,silver and standard copper coins in tax payment was also opened up.From the amount reduction to the land tax limitation,it was the implementation of the idea of reducing the tax amount and increasing the actual income,which was also the method change to reduce the base and raise the tax rate.The land and tax checking movement in the Guangxu period was occurred under the pressure of the Boxer Indemnity and that was the last attempt to recover the previous quota in Anhui Province before the fall the Qing Dynasty.The total measured amount in Anhui province was nearly 30%of the original amount,while that of Huizhou was less than 5%of the original amount,and consequently a large number of land tax accusation cases in Huizhou were followed.The "Shexian public land tax accusation case in the Guangxu period" was a centralized accusation by the gentry,who opposed the extra addition of land tax by citing "the fixed regulations of Zeng Wenzheng".It was proved by the facts that Zeng Guofan’s "regulations changing",adjusting the Meltage fees up to amongst 20%to 40%of the levy tax,was in fact to legalize the "illegal" behavior in the localities,and to obtain local administrative funds from the land tax in the "appendage" way.According to the change of Huizhou society during the period from determining the expropriation pricing by Zeng Guofan to the conducting of the movement,it can be seen that under the monetary price parity fluctuations,the price scissors between the expropriation pricing and the submission discount pricing had become an important index to measure the scale of local public funds,and the expropriation of land tax had become the palestra of the three parties as officials,petty officials and gentries.